


i am your blade; you cannot now complain if you also feel the hurt

by houselannister



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bloodplay, F/M, Swords
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 11:17:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houselannister/pseuds/houselannister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cersei is enamoured with Jaime's sword.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i am your blade; you cannot now complain if you also feel the hurt

**Author's Note:**

> For Suzy. Sister, mirror, better half and all that jazz. May your birthday be filled with all you like most, specifically twincest and whatnot. But mainly twincest. Yes, twincest.
> 
> (Thanks to Ashley for her help with all those things a non-native speaker like me could never do on her own.)

 

 

  
"My hands are of your colour; but I shame

To wear a heart so white."

\- **Macbeth**

* * *

The queen walked amidst the semi-empty obscurity of the Red Keep, two men in armour on each side. As they walked the torches cast long shadows against the stoney walls, surrounded by a red glow. Like puppets moved by the hand of a master with no purpose but that of watching them dance. Their steps echoed in the silence, encased in whispers as they passed by the few souls who still walked the castle so long after the sun had set. The feast was over; the king had drunk his share and retired to his bedchambers, stumbling. The bells had resounded loudly throughout the city when the moon had reached its highest. Newborns had cried, waken from their slumber; the fishermen's wives had lulled them back to sleep, promising the bells would not wake them on the morrow. (They would.)

 

King's Landing slept.

 

The party halted before a wooden door. The woman covered in crimson silks lifted a hand and murmured words of discharge. With a loud clattering -- metal against metal, -- the four guards bowed their heads and walked away in the same direction they'd come from. The woman stood before the door, motionless until the noise was gone and the guards were out of sight. She clasped the pendant that lay cold against her breasts, feeling the relief beneath her fingertips. No one but her could hear it, but the golden lion was roaring, wrathful and hungry and desperate to leap. It was such a shame to keep a lion in a cage, tame the urge to kill and feed on the blood of lesser beasts. A lion is still a lion; a lion in silks can still tear apart the throat of a careless stag. Her eyes snapped shut: if only.

 

When she pressed her palm against the wood the door responded meekly, opening without as much as a sound, bending to her will pathetically. Gathering her skirts, the queen stepped into the room; once more the door seemed to close on its own accord -- or perhaps she'd closed it and forgotten. Her fingers lingered over the small key, watching it glisten in the light on the candles before she turned it into its hole, locking herself safely inside. The room was as silent as the Red Keep, not a breathing soul. Certainly not the one she was there to see. It was a strange occurrence, she thought upon careful reflection, to leave those many candles lit in an empty room. The queen frowned but refused to just stand there; spurred by sudden need for action she walked, walked across the room, and only stopped when she was beside the large table nearby the balcony, half cast in darkness. The glow from the candles on the opposite side of the room made the metal shine; it caught her eye immediately, right beside the silver bowl filled with peaches and grapes. Her brother's longsword.

 

The queen had made a living out of stealth. When she picked up the sword, holding the hilt with one hand and the end of the scabbard with the other, she felt the whole weight of the blade hidden within the sheath. Heavier than any crown that had ever been placed on her head, heavier than any necklace that had ever adorned her chest. In a way, as heavy as Casterly Rock. With a quick glance ahead, at the locked door, she pulled on both ends, wrapping her fingers tightly against the refined hilt; the golden lions that ran across it resembled the one that lay between her breasts. As she unsheathed the blade slowly, she watched her own reflection, her eyes staring back at her from the fine metal. It was the most beautiful thing the queen had ever seen. The scabbard hit the floor with a thud when she dropped it, but as enamoured as she was with the sight before her all her surroundings seemed to fade away. Sharp and clean, the blade seemed to shine of its own light rather than in the one coming from the dying candles. The queen stroked the flat surface with her thumb, balancing the sword at the hilt and the point. When she dared gripping the golden hilt tighter with her right hand alone, she almost dropped the weapon altogether; it was hard to accept, but she wrapped the fingers of her left hand around it as well, and managed to keep it upright with less struggle.

 

(She thought about her brother, who could ride a wild stallion and handle the sword at the same time, seemingly effortlessly. The queen wondered if she might have done that just as well, if only she too had been given a sword the day her brother had been given his first one.)

 

“Your grip is awful.”

 

The queen spun around, holding the blade right in front of her, high and menacing, but heavy all the same; still fear seemed to inject her with a strength her body didn't know. She faced the darkness, saw the familiar silhouette emerge from the darkness of the balcony. The light only seemed to barely lick his face, just enough for her to make out the smugness in his features, and the unbearable twitch of his lips when he saw the blade tremble in her grip. She began to lower the sword but her brother lifted a hand to stop her.

 

“Never lower your blade. Not unless you're sure the threat has passed.” In his words she could hear her father's, the day he had offered advice to him. (Not her. Never her.)

 

“You are no threat, Jaime,” the queen murmured.

 

Jaime Lannister laughed and nodded, stepping closer, closing the distance between them until the sharp end of the blade was pointed at his chest, pressing into his skin over the loose white blouse. With a finger he moved the blade to the left, slightly higher. Cersei felt him pressing against the blade, the pressure reverberating in her grip. Her hands were sweating and her arms began to hurt.

 

“That's where the heart is, Cersei,” Jaime told her, lifting an eyebrow. “You need to push very hard to go past the ribs. Just one inch to the left and you'll only pierce the lung, making the agony so much longer and unnecessary. Unless that's what you're going for. Then by all means, push where and as it pleases you.”

 

Cersei snorted. “I am not interested in thrusting a blade through your heart,” she said, pushing the point just enough to make him hiss. She saw a hint of red coloring the white shirt right where the sword was piercing him, and she smirked at the sight. (In doing that, she missed how quickly the arrogance had faded off his face at her words. How maybe, _maybe_ , if she had thrust that sword right between his ribs he might have thanked her, for it would have been a liberation.)

 

As she spoke, the queen slowly forgot the blade between them, ensnared between the green of her brother's eyes and the red that trickled down beneath his clothes, leaving a trail. That was her mistake, for she never saw her brother move, quick and sudden. He grabbed her wrist, spun her body around with a shove and pulled her flush against his front, keeping her right arm twisted between them at an angle that wouldn't hurt but made it impossible for her to move. With his free hand Jaime managed to grab the blade from her, snatched it with no effort; it all happened in the blink of an eye, so quick that Cersei couldn't even yelp before the blade was at her throat. She swallowed and her brother chuckled in her ear; his hair tickled her cheek -- or was it her hair?

 

“You never listen,” he whispered, brushing his lips against the shell of her ear. Then with a sharp tug he let her go, crouching to pick up the forgotten scabbard. Cersei stared longingly at the blade, watching wordlessly as it disappeared back into its leather shelter. “You shouldn't play with this old thing,” he said, reprimanding. “What would the king say if his queen returned to him bruised or wounded?” His lips twitched again and Cersei hated him then, hated him intensely. _Nothing_ , she knew. _He would laugh_. Jaime knew that perfectly: that was the reason why he'd mentioned that.

 

“You're bleeding,” she said, ignoring his protests when she lifted the hem of his blouse over his abdomen, up to his neck. There it was, the red thin trail that had stained his immaculate clothing. The cut was wide but superficial, yet blood had betrayed his body all the same. She smirked and looked up, only to see that he was stubbornly avoiding her glare in an excess of pride. She pressed her thumb against the wound, proud of her accomplishment; the warm wetness transferred to her skin, stuck to it. His muscles quivered, whether in pain or annoyance she couldn't say. A wound was still a wound, regardless of whether he'd let her inflict it upon himself; it was more than many knights in the Seven Kingdoms could brag about.

 

“It's barely a scratch,” he began, but Cersei silenced him. She brushed her bloodied thumb over his bottom lip, smearing his blood all over it. It was a peculiar sight, one that made her insides tremble. It was a darker shade than the colour she wore, but it was red all the same. Looking up at him she could swear to the Mother she was staring up at herself. Jaime looked back, lips parted, grazing the skin on her fingertip with his teeth. He seemed as amused as she was, even more: she was enthralled, but Jaime grew hard. Cersei tilted her head to the side, admiring her masterpiece. Jaime smiled and let her watch without flinching.

 

So they stood, the queen and the knight, in reciprocal worship, blood between them and on them and _in_ them; the same blood, always.

 

He didn't ask why she was there. Jaime always knew, and Cersei was grateful that she never had to say the words. To tell him that she wanted him, needed him, how would that look? Weak. Desperate. Queens weren't fit for asking. Queens ordered, queens made demands, and it was for others to do as they requested. Not unlike anyone else, Jaime always knew exactly when to bend and acquiesce to Cersei's requests, and that made it all the easier to come to him when the sun had set and the king slept.

 

When Jaime kissed her then, Cersei tasted the blood before she could taste him. Sharp on her tongue, metallic; she sucked his bottom lip in between her teeth and licked it clean, deciding his blood belonged to her. _He_ belonged to her, and the smallest drop of his being would be wasted on anyone but her. If her brother had to bleed, she would be damn sure it was for her and nothing else. He claimed her, caressing her body with his hands and pushing all fabric aside and down her body, but she claimed him by means of his blood on the tip of her tongue. He claimed her by pushing her against the stone, but she claimed him pressing her whole palm against his wound and drawing more blood when the bleeding had stopped.

 

He claimed her when he took her, claimed her by filling his senses with the way she hissed his name every time he drove into her. She claimed him when, in every sigh, she felt his blood stick to her abdomen, like a coat of steel and metal, an armour that he had bled out just for her. A cocoon, Cersei was wrapped in him, and she felt him inside and everywhere; if she ever could remember what it had felt like in her mother's womb, she knew it would be much the same feeling. That time, she did not touch him. She did not run her fingers through his hair, nor did she cling to his shoulders, scratch him, bruise him. That time she slid her hands down her stomach, under Jaime's relentless thrusts, and she tainted herself in him instead. It was a poem, a ballad, it was the mystery of how she came alive every time he was in her, and how he made her all anew each time in his resemblance. He rebuilt her in his own image as a God would, making her him and his and _real,_ putting back together the pieces that someone else -- less careful -- would break over and over again. Not only did she feel whole when he was inside her, she felt put together, like a broken glass in the hands of a skillful, enamoured artisan.

 

She came with a shudder, and so did he, and in the moment of peace that followed she could feel the slow, steady revolving of the earth beneath her feet, and the sun coming up and descending again followed by the moon with all her stars, bright companions in a sea of dark. He was everything, and she with him, and everything was symbiotic and inherent.

 

Condensed.

 

“You won't need a blade as long as I live,” her brother whispered, grazing her sides with his fingertips. She grabbed his hands, halted his movements and pressed them against her belly, against the blood that had flown out of him and onto her. Tainting him as he tainted her, making him as much her as he had made her him. Jaime pressed his forehead against hers, moving his hands across her stomach, smearing the blood all the way up to her breasts. His eyes were closed, so tight that Cersei had to wonder if he was in pain; she arched her back, pushing her breasts into his palms, looking down and following the red patterns he would draw over her nipples with his thumbs. She was a canvas and he was painting her bloody, drawing patterns he knew by heart, patterns that she did not recognize. (Patterns he learned in battle. Patterns that had flown down his sword. Patterns that whispered of Aerys Targaryen and those who came before him, after him. Because of him.)

 

Later she would realize Jaime was painting his ghosts onto her skin: blood was the only colour he knew how to draw them in because blood was the only way he had ever recognized them for.

 

“I am your blade.”

 


End file.
